Guide to Finding Remote Work Online

Utilizing Social Media To Leverage Your Job Search Endeavors

Having a strong social media presence online can significantly increase the number of job opportunities that you are aware of and depending on the type of presence you have it may even lead to opportunities that you may not have even considered. For example, writing blog posts or professional articles related to your industry demonstrates to hiring managers that you are passionate about your chosen profession and could lead to a position that could tangentially related and even more exciting than what you had initially were looking for. Even if all you are trying to do is land a basic job, having a social media strategy can be vital to giving you leverage towards landing a job that you are interested in.

Here's a real life example, Celia Ampel who is a journalism major from the University of Missouri, was working as an intern at the Miami Herald when she had made the decision to get ambitious with her Twitter followers. One person she happened to be following was the managing editor of the South Florida Business Journal, and when a job opening became available, he sent her a message and asked if she was interested in the position. He was impressed with her tech savvy and social media presence. At the Business Journal, one component of her job is to tweet multiple times a day, so she was an excellent fit for the position.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Establish an online, professional profile. On all of your social media accounts, your professional background and accomplishments should be up to date. If there are too many videos and photos of your personal life, it's time to engage your privacy settings.
2. Build a vigorous LinkedIn profile. In addition to having the most up to date information, identifying key individuals in your industry and finding discussions online that you can participate in will assist you in creating a robust network that could result in job leads.
3. Use Twitter to build your network. There are numerous industry related Twitter conversations that can enable you to demonstrate your industry knowledge to the right people. Don't be afraid to reach out to reach out and build relationships with individuals and organizations of interest to you.
4. Consider creating a blog that relates to the field you are passionate about. In addition to the original posts you create, you can also share and comment on other material that is relevant. This will provide you with the opportunity to connect and communicate with others in your field.
5. Share it. Finally, share and communicate information. Forwarding articles and links, retweets, and sharing posts will encourage others to do likewise for you, and it will also expand your online profile.

Your Brand Presentation

"Brand" is a term that is most often associated with businesses and their image, but as an individual, you also have your own brand. This is what you are marketing to prospective employers when you are interviewing for jobs. Make no mistake about it: hiring managers will Google you. When they do, what are they going to find?

Here are 4 simple tips to clean up your online image and make yourself more attractive to employers:

• Search for your name online. Run your name through a few search engines and examine the results several pages deep. What items do you need to account for? Are there old photos or blog posts that need to be deleted?
• Enable those privacy settings! You should always be careful about what private information you post online, but ramping up your use of privacy settings on your social media accounts will keep a prospective employer from finding those old binge drinking photos from your college days.
• Review your recent activities. The epic photos from your last road trip that you shared over Twitter are there for anyone to access — anytime someone wants to know more about you. Go through all of your posts and delete what you need to.
• Rebrand your image. If you haven't already created a profile on LinkedIn, now is the time to do so. Your profile should highlight your career thus far, and you can begin to establish a network. There are also free "nameplate" websites that can be used to tell the story of your career or you that you would like for employers to see. Two good starting sites are Flavors.me and About.me.

The Internet is an excellent tool for connecting with other people, but it also preserves past actions long after you have forgotten about them. Remember that you shouldn't put anything online that you wouldn't want to be made public. Make sure that the image you present offline matches up with what is online.

Your Portfolio

For creative professionals and designers, the items that should be included in their portfolios seems obvious. For business professionals, what should be included in their portfolios is less obvious. It is a common misconception that your portfolio should only include your best work. Ideally, it should contain a combination of materials that showcases your capabilities and how you have used these skills to solve problems.

Here are several examples of materials you should include in your portfolio:

• Copies of official qualification and professional certifications
• A list of accomplishments that go beyond what is listed on your resume. Accomplishments that highlight your problem solving abilities are particularly valuable.
• Past performance reviews
• Letters of recommendation from former clients, employers, or professors
• Writing samples relevant to the job you are applying for
• Screenshots or photos of products that you have previously worked on, or similar projects that can be displayed
• News articles about products you have worked on or about you personally
• Industry awards
• Business documents (Exercise discretion on what documents you carry with you. Classified documents should be omitted.)

Of course, your portfolio should also contain updated copies of your resume, and your resume should be custom tailored to the position that you are applying for. Even if you are fresh out of school, exercising a little bit of effort and creativity can enable you to create a valuable portfolio that will present you as an ideal candidate for the position you want.

How to stay relevant in the job Market

The search for a job can be time consuming, and even if you either have a job or are looking for a job, it is important to ensure that your skills remain relevant to your industry. Choosing to focus on your marketable hard skills is critical to staying relevant in knowledge-based fields such as law, medicine, engineering, and tech. Focusing on building your hard skills provides you with the opportunity to stay sharp and to open new doors. It furthermore demonstrates to employers that you are taking the initiative on your own time to stay current with the changes that are happening and that are going to become commonplace in your given industry.

Now this is not to say that you should learn every new thing that comes out, but to ground this in a more realistic sense, you should be doing research of what hard skills are going to provide long term value and focus on those.

Use the Internet to your advantage. Research what skills in your industry are currently trending. Examine job postings across different websites to identify what hard and soft skills are currently being asked for within specific fields. Even if you are already happily employed, it is imperative to remain relevant within your industry because you will eventually want to seek promotions and pay raises. If you are unhappy with your current job situation, then you will want to retain the ability to move on to a new opportunity when it arises.

Education is the path to learning hard skills, and this doesn't mean that you need to become an expert in the new thing that you are learning. Sometimes a surface level understanding is enough for some professions where you just need to know enough to be able to make informed decisions. Othertimes being able to utilize the new thing a little bit more than surface level is going to be required in order to be successful in what you need to do. For example, if you are trying to move into a new job and you need to be able to utilize the hard skill in order to create a demo or presentation, then obviously you are going to need a bit more than surface level knowledge in order to field questions about the tool in question and build the working demo.

Aside from hard skills, it's equally important to ensure that your soft skills don't go ignored and that you are making a concentrated effort to build them up as well. Examples of soft skills include things that are intangible and measure, things like your ability to think outside of the box, how you interact and work with others and your overall emotional intelligence. There's plenty of books on emotional intelligence if you want to learn more about it.

These two factors are important to have if you want to thrive and stay relevant in today's job market. For example, in a job interview, although there are technical aspects to an interview, your interpersonal skills are equally as important when a company is determining whether or not you would be a good fit for their position.

Types of Technical Training Programs

The tech industry is growing by leaps and bounds, and there continues to be a critical shortage of professionals needed to fill these positions. The good news is that, if you are interested in the tech field, but do not think that attending a traditional four-year college is the route you want to go, there are plethora of other technical training programs for you to choose from.

If you choose to take advantage of online technology education, you will have one of three primary options to choose from. At the simplest level, there are basic training courses designed to teach skills in one specific area. Secondly, there are certification options that offer technology training and professional credentials that are recognized by most employers. At the most advanced levels, you can obtain your undergraduate or graduate degree online.

It is important to bear in mind that most technology training today will take place online, since the majority of the technology being taught is computer based.

If you learn better in a classroom, training and certification courses are often taught at local community colleges or tech schools. The most popular options include:

• Operating systems courses, which show a person how to use computer systems, like Linux.
• Applications training, which teaches a person how to use Microsoft Office Suite.
• Website design, which teach a basic understanding of HTML and how to design websites.
• Certification Programs, which help you to earn a certificate in fields that require certification, such as network engineer or automotive engineer

Keeping Track of Metrics and Following up

You've reached the end of the guide. I hope you don't feel overloaded or overwhelmed now. I know it can be alot to take in, however if you pick one thing and focus on that, it will make it alot easier to navigate through.

Online Job Boards

• We Work Remotely

• FlexJobs

• WFH.io

• RemoteOK

• jobspresso

• Remote.co

• Remotive

• Working Nomads

• Mike's Remote List

• https://dribbble.com/jobs
• https://stackoverflow.com/jobs
• https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/remote-jobs/

Conclusion

You've reached the end of the guide. I hope you don't feel overloaded or overwhelmed now. I know it can be alot to take in, however if you pick one thing and focus on that, it will make it alot easier to navigate through.